Beta Riders Club Discussion Forum

My KYB's have been a disapointment for eight months until yesterday. My local tuner did a re-valve after 3 months which did help but it was not the cure, I spent a lot of time working with the settings trying to achieve something close to my buddies 250 YZf who uses the same tuner so I took my stuff back to him and asked that he duplicate my suspension to my buddies. On the next ride I felt it was better but still harsh.
On other bikes I sometimes found that I could actually reduce harshness if I increased compression so I tried it on this set-up by adding 7 clicks on compression and 3 off the rebound and Presto!!!! Like magic the bike was transformed. Suddenly I found that I didn't need to steer around rocks or roots, just ride over them. Also, on several of our trails there are sections of rocky cobble that usually would throw me all over the place but now the bike litterly tiptoes through these sections. The bike now gives me much more confidence in all conditions. Don't give up on the KYBs, there is a cure.

I had well setup KYB's swap from old bike to new bike, they seemed terrible on the 20, the 20 shock has some strange valving that makes it feel like the front has issues when in fact the shock needs revalved.

The harshness issues felt by most riders is due to a firm mid valve and soft base valve. If the base/mid relationship is not kept in sync, you end up with very poor pressure control. This lack of internal pressure control will result in cavitation. When cavitation occurs, you get a very harsh and erratic feeling fork even though it can seem soft or mushy at other times.

By turning your compression clicker in, you have effectively made the base valve circuit firmer. A firmer base valve will work better with the firmer mid valve and provide a slightly better job keeping cavitation at bay.

The KYBs equipped on our Betas can be made every bit as good (I would argue better) than the Japanese competition with some internal corrections and design changes from a valving perspective.

the sloth wrote:My KYB's have been a disapointment for eight months until yesterday. My local tuner did a re-valve after 3 months which did help but it was not the cure, I spent a lot of time working with the settings trying to achieve something close to my buddies 250 YZf who uses the same tuner so I took my stuff back to him and asked that he duplicate my suspension to my buddies. On the next ride I felt it was better but still harsh.
On other bikes I sometimes found that I could actually reduce harshness if I increased compression so I tried it on this set-up by adding 7 clicks on compression and 3 off the rebound and Presto!!!! Like magic the bike was transformed. Suddenly I found that I didn't need to steer around rocks or roots, just ride over them. Also, on several of our trails there are sections of rocky cobble that usually would throw me all over the place but now the bike litterly tiptoes through these sections. The bike now gives me much more confidence in all conditions. Don't give up on the KYBs, there is a cure.

I know this is an older post but was wanting to try what you did with the clickers before having to get it re-valved. I’m assuming adding 7 clicks to the compression means you turned it in 7 clicks and 3 off the rebound means you turned it out 3 clicks ?

Yes, that is correct. I'm 7 out from all the way in.